A vision worth voting for

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September 24, 2012 @ 1:41 pm
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By David E. FarisColorado Voices

We’re in an election year. In a swing state. Should I say spin state?[1]

And we’ve seen the fires of summer. (Let us hope they are spent. Should they return, may rains roll down like a mighty stream.)

The air has reeked of ash, the airwaves, of ads. The ads continue. It’s been grit and grist, grime and grim, Smokey and smoke. Earlier you could count the airy particulates as the fires’ devastation spread. Not so easy on the media front: pinning down candidate particulars.

It’s hard to know to what degree voters base election choices on propaganda. But a lot of money goes for ads — a lot — so somebodies think it’s worth it.

Like Martin Luther King, and even following some of the ads: Spell out your dream for our country. Then see which candidates would best foster it. You don’t endorse another’s vision. You float your own. Let it burn bright. Let it shine before all.

It would be hard to match Dr. King’s eloquence. But you can strive to match his passion. And if you exceed your grasp? All the better, since these fired-up visions incite and inspire, beckon like beacons, guide toward new terrain.

As best I can judge, my values come from a few examples I can identify and from a couple of principles I find unassailable.

My father was a generous man and implacably honest. (A brother has stated — complained? — that our father made it impossible for him to lie.) I have other heroes and heroines, guides and models, from my family, my experience, and from those living and dead whom I know from their works.

The principles that guide me are simple enough. First, I consider it a product of pure chance, the haphazard grace of accident, that I was born to auspicious circumstances — and not, say, to a family of subsistence farmers in Mali or Maharashtra or Mississippi. Some have called this the lottery of birth. I know I am a dumb luck winner.

My second principle comes as a quote, from another renowned preacher. One source has it as follows: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”

The first tenet defines a population of concern, vast beyond multitudes. The second guides action, any and all. (Oh, would that it did.)

I have never known hunger or want. I have never known violence or tyranny. I have never lacked needed health care. My dream would extend these gifts to all. With study and work I have been able to develop some of my talents — an immense blessing. But I know I started ahead. Is there not a corresponding obligation?

I salute those whose efforts provide benefit for others. You know: “build a better mousetrap.” Let us foster ideas and discoveries that ease life’s hardships and spread joy. Let us recognize those who serve their fellows. My dream includes no special privilege for passive wealth or financial activities experts liken to roulette.

The religions of the world — there are ten thousand — offer ten thousand divisive creeds. Meanwhile, scientists across this same world communicate with shared methods and under­standing, using their gifts to seek verifiable discovery and measured pathways to knowledge and progress. My choice is clear.

The earth was here before us — and will endure. We share it with uncountable billions of beings. Shouldn’t we, at the least, leave our campsite as we found it?

I hesitate to address arms and armies in a dream worth voting for. Maybe this will have to suffice, from the same consultant as earlier: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

A last note. To ponder. I recall that the writer Delmore Schwartz gave as title to his best-known work: “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.”

David E. Faris (fredavid@aol.com) of Aurora is a retired psychologist. He was a member of the 2011 Colorado Voices panel.